Can we list which fights are better for Disc / Holy?

[Feeline10]

If you don't have a Discipline Priest, go Discipline. If there is already a Discipline Priest, whether not you should go Discipline or Holy depends on the other healers present and what your particular group needs to overcome the challenge. Speak with them and see where they feel certain areas are lacking?

I can't think of a single encounter this tier where you would want to select anything other that Cascade.

I am the disc priest.. and also the holy priest. I choose which to be on which fights. I've found that disc is strong on most, but I wanna try holy on a few where I feel it'll be beneficial. Just wondered if anyone had thoughts on this prior to me listing my own ideas

- - - Updated - - -

Noticed how derailed this became do to the first reply and all of our fixation on it. Ganna try to rectify that. Overall, I feel most fights don't have any serious preference one way or another. There are a few I think Disc or Holy would do better, for one reason or another, though overall Holy is likely to fit in more easily and perform more consistently than disc. In general, Holy's CD's are much more easy to use effectively than discs, and more versatile and probably beneficial as well outside of situations with huge damage bursts. That being said I don't think it's reasonable at all to force a priest to go Disc or Holy. These people probably who would do that need to be slapped across the face by an elephant phallus.

Cooldowns
I feel this is important because CD's are likely something most raids will always worry about having. Furthermore, I feel they can be pivotal in one spec having a higher potential usefulness in a fight than the other.

Pain Suppression VS Guardian Angle
GA gives a cheat death and bonus to healing taken from all sources by the target, or if glyphed, and extreme increase in healing taken, but no cheat death. In it's most basic form, it's versatile in that you can use it in reaction to huge damage increase, the tank dipping low, or proactively in response to predictable damage (such as korgs add phase). Its ability to save a tank, or any player's life for that matter, is very significant. While it's glyphed form definitely needs more careful use since it has no cheat death, it also gains some niche spots such as shroom healing on brackenspore, since it allows one healer to do the output of 3 healers on the target. Even the weakest heals will become very noticeable.

Pain Suppression requires timing and prediction of large damage intakes on the target, most likely the tank, to be useful. While on some encounters, this would obviously be easy (Korg add phase, for example), most of the time, I feel it would be easier to simply use GA. While it doesn't have to be spot on timing, I feel PS is at a definite disadvantage to GA in situations such as tanks dipping low because of failed mechanics, for example. That being said, when used spot on, it probably has the highest potential.

Power Word: Barrier VS Divine Hymn
Divine Hymn heals the entire raid for a fair amount, and provides an buff for 8 seconds each tick increasing healing done by 10%. Granted, the healing buff mechanic makes it somewhat detrimental to use during periods of extreme haste (such as lust, PI, trinkets, ect.) since the longer it takes for the last tick to go off, the longer the raid and other healers benefit from the 10% bonus (thought this obviously shouldn't be prioritized over getting the healing off when needed).

PW:B gives a 25% damage reduction for 10 seconds to anyone in the barrier. I would argue that the DR alone would make this spell able to, in a pinch, work as a tank CD as well so long as the tank with the boss can stay in it. Again, much harder to use effectively than holy's CD, though also probably has a much higher potential. The biggest flaw is that it's uncommon for the entire raid to stack together in a single spot, so that alone is bringing the ceiling down on what it can potential do.

Boss Fights
I would argue Disc would be by far and away superior for Karg, since healing is extremely low for this fight, at least in direct comparison with any other fight in the raid. Probably low enough that absorbs can drop health loss enough that other healers wont have much to do at all. Note, I'm not saying Holy is bad for this fight, merely that Disc probably has higher potential.

I would argue for Holy on Butcher, as I feel the damage going out is to great for PW:S alone to simply soak it all. Holy has a lot better AoE healing capabilities, and prehotting the targets can prove very strong. Of course, when he does his soft enrage Discs PW:B would be very nice, I feel holy would be more consistently useful on the fight. Note, I'm not saying disc is by any means bad for this fight, merely that Holy could have a higher potential.

Tectus has no serious preference.EDITED Upon reading this through after posting, I feel I explained it poorly, and opted to rewrite this part entirely. The conclusion remains the same however. The massive 100 energy AoE is, in my opinion, by far and away the most likely thing to cause lethal damage on raid members. Normally, I would say this makes holy better, but the extreme predictability of it means disc can soak a lot of damage with shielding. And while PW:B can only be on one or the other group, it will still soak a very large amount of damage. Holy ca still pump out serious AoE heals to keep up with that fact, but with the added bonus of probably out performing disc should the priest be RNGayed by being targeted often crystal barrage.

Brackenspore I don't see a preference. Both have single target CD's that can be super effective on the shrooms, so I find no way to argue in favor that way, and the group CD's are both very strong on this fight. In my own experience, this tends to be my own 'weakest' fight in terms of healing done, so perhaps I am missing something.

Twins I also don't see any preference towards. I suppose disc would be better if people are failing to dodge fire (to a very bad extent), though otherwise I can't see one being substantially better than the other.

Korag is dependent upon your group strat. If your guild does a stacking strat, I would go disc. If your guild does not use the stack strat, then holy. Many would probably argue disc soley on the fire dot, but I find it rarely ends up being the big "oh shit" mechanic. Some might also argue disc for pre shielding the shit outa the soaker, but again I would say this is counteracted by disc having NO CD's to help the soaker, where as GA can make a huge difference.

Imperator I don't see a strong lead for either unless people fail mines often, in which case I will argue holy can definitely react much more strongly to that being failed since Disc multi HEALING is very poor (shield wont do anything unless you know someone is going to fail in advance) in comparison to Holy. Realistically though, if you are failing mines a lot, you probably are going to wipe.

Thank you very much for this list. I agree with almost all of it, if not all of it. I was disc on Mythic Kargath last night, my name is Felinepriest and heres the logs: https://www.warcraftlogs.com/reports/jwa2FVtbYGBcx4QM#boss=1721&wipes=1&type=healing

So again just to re-iterate, there is no other disc in the raid, that won't ever happen in our current setup. We do have a holy / shadow priest, and she's great at Holy. But, some fights I still think I should go holy rather than disc. I do very much appreciate everyone's input on which fights are more beneficial for holy or disc. Thank you again.

[laalipop]

Divine Hymn heals for almost half as much as Tranquility/Revival, but at least Revival has a downside of being instant, which isn't even always a downside mind you, but in a general scenario it would be. It's also almost half as mana-efficient, and tries to make up for being crap with a +10% healing buff, which isn't really worth much since you can get the same from a mage in any case.

Except you get both, 10% from mage and 10% from hymn.

If the comparison is PW:B and DH I would love DH back. Even if it doesn't heal for a lot it doesn't require stacking.

It also does a good enough job to peel off the Shadow debuff, something I can't do as disc.

[Thirteen]

Except you get both, 10% from mage and 10% from hymn.

If the comparison is PW:B and DH I would love DH back. Even if it doesn't heal for a lot it doesn't require stacking.

It also does a good enough job to peel off the Shadow debuff, something I can't do as disc.

I feel like that's cherry-picking a bit. Barrier still pulls further ahead in many other relevant situations (Tectonic Upheaval, Infesting Spores under a blue mushroom, Cleave on Butcher and anomaly explosions on Imperator), and even on Ko'ragh, helps lower the damage from the Expel Frost and reduces damage taken while the shadow debuff is out.

[laalipop]

I feel like that's cherry-picking a bit. Barrier still pulls further ahead in many other relevant situations (Tectonic Upheaval, Infesting Spores under a blue mushroom, Cleave on Butcher and anomaly explosions on Imperator), and even on Ko'ragh, helps lower the damage from the Expel Frost and reduces damage taken while the shadow debuff is out.

If you can stack, Barrier is better. That is the big difference though, at least the strats often used by my group do not allow us to stack often (thinking....Butcher, Bracken, Enfeeble, I use barrier as a tank CD on Ko'ragh because we never stack, anomilies on Imperator, this is heroic, I've only seen Mythic Kargath)

Problem is that I can see Hymn, maybe not being better, but getting the job done for those scenarios as well as a lot of the times Barrier will never apply. It isn't useless, might not look as pretty on the meters because of the healing boost instead of raw throughput, but it isn't useless.

[Thirteen]

If you can stack, Barrier is better. That is the big difference though, at least the strats often used by my group do not allow us to stack often (thinking....Butcher, Bracken, Enfeeble, I use barrier as a tank CD on Ko'ragh because we never stack, anomilies on Imperator, this is heroic, I've only seen Mythic Kargath)

So, if I understood properly, you do Butcher, Brackenspore and Enfeebling Roar without stacking? How does that work? Not being an ass, just genuinely wondering if I understood it properly.

Problem is that I can see Hymn, maybe not being better, but getting the job done for those scenarios as well as a lot of the times Barrier will never apply. It isn't useless, might not look as pretty on the meters because of the healing boost instead of raw throughput, but it isn't useless.

Well, two things here:

1) Comparing Hymn to Barrier is a bit apples-to-oranges, so there's no clear winner. PWB is much better in stacking situations, and there's plenty of them in Highmaul (see above), so it can possibly be considered the superior one, especially since PWB is better on 2/3 of the harder bosses (Butcher, Imperator vs Hymn on Ko'ragh), and can also double as a great tank CD even on fights where your strategy doesn't allow stacking, though 6/7 bosses encourage stacking on the most damaging phase.
2) Comparing Hymn to Tranquility/Revival, Hymn falls short every single time. Tranqulity and Revival both heal for much more, letting your other healers use their low-cost, mana-efficient spells; and HTT will usually win by being much more mana-efficient and non-channeling. DH heals for 8 seconds and its buff lasts for 16 (technically less, but let's assume 16), and HTT heals for the same amount over 10 seconds. This can go in favor of one or the other obviously, but in general, you won't need the DH buff for the full 16 seconds, and unless the +10% buff lets your raid make up for the fact that your priest is channeling, HTT will still be better.

That said, Hymn will probably get the job done in not letting anyone die - but in every situation there's another raid cooldown (Tranq, Revival) that does it better, with Revival being virtually unusable during Ko'ragh's fire phase, if for whatever reason you felt you needed a raid CD there.

[laalipop]

So, if I understood properly, you do Butcher, Brackenspore and Enfeebling Roar without stacking? How does that work? Not being an ass, just genuinely wondering if I understood it properly.


Well, two things here:

1) Comparing Hymn to Barrier is a bit apples-to-oranges, so there's no clear winner. PWB is much better in stacking situations, and there's plenty of them in Highmaul (see above), so it can possibly be considered the superior one.
2) Comparing Hymn to Tranquility/Revival, Hymn falls short every single time. Tranqulity and Revival both heal for much more, letting your other healers use their low-cost, mana-efficient spells; and HTT will usually win by being much more mana-efficient and non-channeling. DH heals for 8 seconds and its buff lasts for 16 (technically less, but let's assume 16), and HTT heals for the same amount over 10 seconds. This can go in favor of one or the other obviously, but in general, you won't need the DH buff for the full 16 seconds, and unless the +10% buff lets your raid make up for the fact that your priest is channeling, HTT will still be better.

Apologies I should have typed that out better, those are about the only times we do stack and I can use Barrier.

I'm not arguing the point that Tranq, HTT and Revival are better, so many variables there (mana cost, healing, channel, healing boost, other healers spell choices, amp magic) and the healing boost to me means Hymn has wider degrees of viability based on factors. I'm arguing the point of ...

Can we stop treating DH like a cooldown though

... because it is a major cooldown and still keeps the raid stable, just not through raw throughput and maybe not as well as other cooldowns.

[Thirteen]

... because it is a major cooldown and still keeps the raid stable, just not through raw throughput and maybe not as well as other cooldowns.

It's just that arguing "You want a holy priest because they have a cooldown" is such a poor argument. If you're taking another healer for the cooldown it's not gonna be a holy priest, it's gonna be a druid/monk. And just as holy is the weaker healer (compared to disc, it's relatively balanced compared to others), its cooldown is weaker than all others to the point where it's literally almost on par with Vampiric Embrace; which isn't to say VE isn't stronger than it has any right to be.

[anon5123]

The issue isn't that you can't do it is holy. The issue is that by being holy you're not being disc, and disc wins 10/10 times compared to holy (and every other healer? [citation needed]).

And what do you mean by "wins" ?

I get #1 on heals as Holy or Disc.

Not everyone is doing mythic modes, and not everyone is trying to get uber-mega-top-parses. For the purposes of Normal and Heroic, Holy works fine.

[ceddya]

It's just that arguing "You want a holy priest because they have a cooldown" is such a poor argument. If you're taking another healer for the cooldown it's not gonna be a holy priest, it's gonna be a druid/monk. And just as holy is the weaker healer (compared to disc, it's relatively balanced compared to others), its cooldown is weaker than all others to the point where it's literally almost on par with Vampiric Embrace; which isn't to say VE isn't stronger than it has any right to be.

Except the initial post was centered around bringing 2 Discs, in which case you lose a throughput CD for another mitigation one. The question is whether that trade-off is worth it, and I have yet to come across a single fight in Highmaul where it would be.

[Axelond]

Holy if you already have a disc in your raid otherwise disc

[laalipop]

It's just that arguing "You want a holy priest because they have a cooldown" is such a poor argument. If you're taking another healer for the cooldown it's not gonna be a holy priest, it's gonna be a druid/monk. And just as holy is the weaker healer (compared to disc, it's relatively balanced compared to others), its cooldown is weaker than all others to the point where it's literally almost on par with Vampiric Embrace; which isn't to say VE isn't stronger than it has any right to be.

As a side note:
I'd like to see where you're able to say that it is indeed that weak. Given how many factors exclusive to the group the priest is in, I don't know that such a broad statement can be made.

On topic:
It isn't a poor argument for the arguments at hand. If the question was "Who has the best raid cooldown" you'd probably be right. But the question here is "Is DH a cooldown." Which to answer proper, you need to answer "Can the results of this ability keep the raid alive through x mechanic?" Not "Can something else do the job better than this ability?"

[Thirteen]

And what do you mean by "wins" ?

I get #1 on heals as Holy or Disc.

Not everyone is doing mythic modes, and not everyone is trying to get uber-mega-top-parses. For the purposes of Normal and Heroic, Holy works fine.

It's not about getting #1 heals or doing mythics. Disc is easier to play, and more effective at what it does, simple as that. If you have holy priest, you have just another healer. Having a disc is better in most situations.

Except the initial post was centered around bringing 2 Discs, in which case you lose a throughput CD for another mitigation one. The question is whether that trade-off is worth it, and I have yet to come across a single fight in Highmaul where it would be.

No, the question was "I'm the only priest in the raid. When should I be holy and when should I be disc"? In terms of effectiveness, be disc 100% of the time.

As a side note:
I'd like to see where you're able to say that it is indeed that weak. Given how many factors exclusive to the group the priest is in, I don't know that such a broad statement can be made.

On topic:
It isn't a poor argument for the arguments at hand. If the question was "Who has the best raid cooldown" you'd probably be right. But the question here is "Is DH a cooldown." Which to answer proper, you need to answer "Can the results of this ability keep the raid alive through x mechanic?" Not "Can something else do the job better than this ability?"

DH heals for less than any other healer cooldown, simple as that. Healing CDs are supposed to be a (relatively) quick burst of healing to counter a quick burst of damage or healing absorption; and the +10% healing that DH gives to make up for its lack of throughput doesn't make things much quicker. Again, it might heal for more than HTT if all healing done by it + the buff is taken into consideration, but HTT lets the shaman cast while it's ticking heals.

Does it do a job of keeping people up? Sure. But its effectiveness is just as close to VE and Rallying Cry as it is to Tranqulity and Revival, and both of them are defensive cooldowns on DPS specs.

[anon5123]

It's not about getting #1 heals or doing mythics. Disc is easier to play, and more effective at what it does, simple as that. If you have holy priest, you have just another healer. Having a disc is better in most situations.

Like I said, not everyone plays mythic. Not everyone is striving to min-max as much as they possibly can. By your logic, every single raid should be composed of nothing but the "best" tank class, "best" healer and "best" DPS spec. Does that ever happen? No, because very few people care to min-max to that degree. This isn't vanilla/BC, all of the classes/specs are viable now.

[Airlick]

Imperator I don't see a strong lead for either unless people fail mines often, in which case I will argue holy can definitely react much more strongly to that being failed since Disc multi HEALING is very poor (shield wont do anything unless you know someone is going to fail in advance) in comparison to Holy. Realistically though, if you are failing mines a lot, you probably are going to wipe.

Stomping on mines is barely manageable in normal, in heroic it usually leads to a wipe, I assume in mythic it just oneshots the whole raid. You shouldn't consider mines at all when deciding which spec is better on this fight.

- - - Updated - - -

Like I said, not everyone plays mythic. Not everyone is striving to min-max as much as they possibly can. By your logic, every single raid should be composed of nothing but the "best" tank class, "best" healer and "best" DPS spec. Does that ever happen? No, because very few people care to min-max to that degree. This isn't vanilla/BC, all of the classes/specs are viable now.

You can't always stack the "best" class, some are not that good on their own, others, like Disc, have mechanics that eliminate the option of stacking them.

[Dracodraco]

Like I said, not everyone plays mythic. Not everyone is striving to min-max as much as they possibly can. By your logic, every single raid should be composed of nothing but the "best" tank class, "best" healer and "best" DPS spec. Does that ever happen? No, because very few people care to min-max to that degree. This isn't vanilla/BC, all of the classes/specs are viable now.

Doesn't really matter. Question was what was best. Question has been answered. Arguing "everything viable in low difficulties" doesn't matter at all. Holy still not "best" if (s)he is the only priest present.

[Thirteen]

Like I said, not everyone plays mythic. Not everyone is striving to min-max as much as they possibly can. By your logic, every single raid should be composed of nothing but the "best" tank class, "best" healer and "best" DPS spec. Does that ever happen? No, because very few people care to min-max to that degree. This isn't vanilla/BC, all of the classes/specs are viable now.

Look, you can play whatever you want. Holy is completely viable, and even competitive with the non-disc specs. But the only answer to "what fights are better for Holy, and which fights are better as Disc?" is "Everything is better as disc".

[ceddya]

No, the question was "I'm the only priest in the raid. When should I be holy and when should I be disc"? In terms of effectiveness, be disc 100% of the time.

Except for that fact that you quoted a response of mine that disagreed with the post that said 2 Disc Priests brought more versatility to the raid. DH may not be as strong as the other raid CDs, but you have yet to explain why 2 Disc Priests are better than 1 Disc/1 Holy.

[Thirteen]

Except for that fact that you quoted a response of mine that disagreed with the post that said 2 Disc Priests brought more versatility to the raid. DH may not be as strong as the other raid CDs, but you have yet to explain why 2 Disc Priests are better than 1 Disc/1 Holy.

First of all, the thread isn't about that - it's about where disc/holy is stronger than the other - but I'll bite.

Second, you're misquoting me and implying that I suggested having 100% disc healers is optimal. It's not. For each disc that you have, the effectiveness of having another one goes down. Which is completely normal.

2 discs aren't always stronger than 1 disc 1 holy. But as long as you have 1 disc per 8-10 players, it's better. If you're running a 10man, yeah, holy/disc is probably better, but only because the nature of disc doesn't allow you to stack them. So, in theory a 20man raid (with 4 only-priest healers) wouldn't work with 4 discs, but it would work with 4 holy. Or at least the 4 holy raid will probably have a better time. But it's best with 2 disc and 2 holy.

[PosPosPos]

Divine Hymn heals for almost half as much as Tranquility/Revival, but at least Revival has a downside of being instant, which isn't even always a downside mind you, but in a general scenario it would be. DH is also almost half as mana-efficient, and tries to make up for being crap with a +10% healing buff, which isn't really worth much since you can get the same from a mage in any case.

...which lasts for 15 seconds. You would have to roll two and a half mages to get that sort of duration.

Divine Hymn heals for 60% of Tranq on its own, and buffs any existing hots or delayed heals(Cascade for instance) you have thrown out before channeling.

Finally, 10% buff to all healing for 15 seconds is roughly worth 180k healing assuming all the other healers are somehow playing conservatively and maintaining 30k hps during the duration. This amount scales up when you are using 3 minute cooldowns at the appropriate time - to actually provide a strong raid-wide healing cd and assists all the other healers to that end.

Sure, if you are looking for meter padding potential, then DH is not the spell for you; but if you want to do effective healing, it is by far the best throughput CD hands down, save maybe for Revival.

Hymn was very good in SoO, but it's nowhere near that right now. In terms of healing, it's on par with healing tide totem, which is far more mana-efficient at least. It's also only slightly better than Vampiric Embrace, and in a multidot scenario (how many of those are there in Highmaul?), VE can potentially heal for more.

It's a bald-faced lie to say VE can heal for more than DH. Each cast of DH does at least double that of what VE does even for multidot fights.

[ceddya]

First of all, the thread isn't about that - it's about where disc/holy is stronger than the other - but I'll bite.

Second, you're misquoting me and implying that I suggested having 100% disc healers is optimal. It's not. For each disc that you have, the effectiveness of having another one goes down. Which is completely normal.

2 discs aren't always stronger than 1 disc 1 holy. But as long as you have 1 disc per 8-10 players, it's better. If you're running a 10man, yeah, holy/disc is probably better, but only because the nature of disc doesn't allow you to stack them. So, in theory a 20man raid (with 4 only-priest healers) wouldn't work with 4 discs, but it would work with 4 holy. Or at least the 4 holy raid will probably have a better time. But it's best with 2 disc and 2 holy.

Again, you quoted my reply to a discussion about two Discs in a raid. That being said, I never once implied that you claimed 2 Discs are optimal. Read what you quoted of me - I'm asking you to explain why you think 2 Disc Priests in a 20-man are better than 1 Holy + 1 Disc.